HONEY, I LOST THE KIDS
SafeTzone Tracking System Lets Parents Keep Tabs on Kids at Theme Parks
By SANDI CAIN
In an age of anxiety over war and terrorism, a parent’s worst nightmare hits closer to home: losing a child in a crowd.
“We have a lost child every day, though in most cases they are reunited pretty quickly,” said Susan Tierney, public relations director for Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park.
Laguna Hills-based SafeTzone Technol-ogies Corp. has developed what it calls the “Child Locator System,” which gives parents a way to keep tabs on kids at play.
The device lets family members find others in their group by swiping a wristwatch-style device across a scanner at kiosks throughout the park. The kiosks,called “location stations”,promptly display a map of the park and the whereabouts of all members in the guest’s registered group.
“The thing I like best about it is that it works,” said Greg Briggs, director of operations at Wild Rivers in Irvine. “It brings peace of mind (to both park operators and parents),” he said.
John Robinette, a Los Angeles theme park analyst, said such systems are an emerging trend in the amusement industry.
“The idea is to provide consumers a sense of comfort,” Robinette said.
Three-year-old SafeTzone has installed its device at water parks, including Wild Rivers, Wet ‘n Wild in Las Vegas and Orlando and Dolly’s Splash Country in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.
In March, the company inked a deal with Woburn, Mass.-based ScooterBug Inc., a provider of strollers and wheelchairs to the amusement industry, to provide the system under a licensing agreement to 20 amusement parks in the next two years.
Regan E. Kelly, SafeTzone executive vice president, declined to name the parks, citing unfinished contract details, but said as many as eight parks could be up and running this year, including some in Southern California, Florida and Ohio.
A basic SafeTzone system for a water park would cost $150,000 to $400,000, depending on the park’s size. For an amusement park, that figure could climb upward of $1 million. Installation typically takes one to two weeks.
Wild Rivers was the first to install the Child Locator System in 2001.
Visitors rent wristband transmitters for $2 to $3 at a registration center. Each person gets a locator device with a unique identifier that communicates his or her exact location by radio signal.
At Wild Rivers, the cost of the locator wristband is included with a season pass. Large groups can call ahead with guest lists to pre-register. “You don’t want to have a busload of kids standing around waiting for wristbands,” Briggs said.
During a visit, any group member can swipe the locator at a kiosk to find other members of the party or leave messages.
To allay fears that outsiders could use the system to lure a child away, only registered group members can locate each other. Departures are noted electronically when the guest turns in the wristband.
Robinette said a Mexico City amusement park, La Ciudad de Los Ni & #324;os, employs a similar system that prevents children from leaving without a parent, but the company that supplies the locator devices hasn’t expanded to the U.S.
SafeTzone transmitters can send and receive signals even if the guest is inside a building. But the wristband can be removed.
“It’s not meant to be an electronic babysitter,” cautioned Kelly. Instead, he said, it gives parents another way to cut down on the chance of having to look for a lost kid.
“It’s a tool, not a guarantee,” he said.
Tierney said Knott’s has been looking at adding a child-locating system, but has not yet done so. And while cost is a factor for any park looking at new equipment, other issues come into play, too.
“As attendance goes up, the potential (for a lost child) goes up,” she said. “Anything we can do to avoid that is worth looking at.”
This summer, Wild Rivers will test the company’s newest feature,the SafeTzone cashless software module. The cashless module is like a virtual wallet that guests use as a debit card, based on a dollar amount authorized at registration.
Each time a snack, drink or gift purchase is made, the amount is debited from the group’s total, linking the purchase to the unique identifier on the buyer’s wristband. Financial data is stored only for the duration of that visit.
SafeTzone Technologies is the result of an idea spawned by twin brothers Patrick and Timothy Giraldin in 1999 to provide a safe entry and exit system for area playgrounds.
The brothers concluded their idea might have broader appeal and turned to two former colleagues,Regan Kelly and Martin Crowley,to form the company. The four were once executives at Foothill Ranch-based Onyx Acceptance Corp.
The company has 22 employees.
